


You Might Be One Of Us

by starswholisten



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Cassian POV, Gen, Squad, this chapter should be written from every point of view
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 17:35:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8455609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starswholisten/pseuds/starswholisten
Summary: Cassian's POV of Chapter 16 of ACOMAF, when the Court of Dreams meets Feyre. “Come on, Feyre. We don’t bite. Unless you ask us to."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nessian_is_fire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nessian_is_fire/gifts).



> I got a request from Maggie to write this scene from Cassian's POV. Since this is my favorite chapter of ACOMAF, I obliged, and it was a lot of fun!
> 
> This. Is. LONG. Apologies for angst in advance, but I make up for it with plenty of Cassian sass and allusions to Moriel. Enjoy.
> 
> Title is from the always relevant Heathens by Twenty One Pilots.

When I heard Rhys land on the balcony, I put down my glass of wine and grinned at Azriel on my right. “Let’s go meet this Cursebreaker that Rhysand won’t shut up about, shall we?"

As I went to stand, Mor threw a deceptively delicate arm in front of me. Of course, I knew that arm could disintegrate entire buildings, but that didn’t stop me from throwing a scowl in her direction. She rolled her eyes. “Give her space, prick. She’s not a toy for you to play with."

Azriel coughed as I continued to glare at Mor. She had a way of getting under my skin, and the pure command in her queenly voice forced my hand. I settled down into my chair and she removed her barrier arm, sipping at her wine.

I could hear Rhys and the girl talking in hushed tones. Azriel’s shadows swirled about his body in powerful wisps, his attention directed at the doorway. Listening. I took another cursory glance at Mor beside me and while she was distracted, assessing Azriel’s constant vigilance with concern as she always did, I slid my chair back and sauntered in the direction of the doorway. Mor growled behind me and I smirked at my success in irritating her. I could hear her telling Azriel to follow me and make sure I didn’t say anything stupid, and in a moment my brother was walking beside me.

Azriel and I approached the doorway and I immediately sensed we were interrupting something. Rhys glanced over his shoulder at us and murmured, “Later.” The girl turned around to face us, and I grinned at her, attempting to hide the complete and utter disbelief I felt finally meeting her.

She was small, skinny, and looked like a gust of wind would break her in half. I couldn’t even fathom how Rhys had flown her up here without her blowing away. Actually, I don’t know how she did half of the things Rhys had told us about with a frail body like this one.

She was wearing an extravagant midnight blue gown, likely one Mor had picked out, judging by the plunging neckline. However, despite the sickly framework of her body, she wasn’t unattractive in the slightest. In fact, after a few weeks of good food and a bit of training, she could be on par with Mor’s beauty. Something about her golden brown hair and blue-grey eyes captivated me, but I already suspected that my brother had been ensnared by this one. I would keep my distance, even if a shadow of something about her seemed to pull at me.

I tucked my wings tight as I took in the unease on her face. It wasn’t fear, exactly - but she definitely had no idea what to think about us. She was assessing us as if we were threats. Good. I could like this one in time.

I chuckled as she eyed us with suspicion. “Come on, Feyre. We don’t bite. Unless you ask us to,” I said.

The girl looked surprised, and I could sense Rhys easing into the familiarity of our brotherly banter before he even spoke. “The last I heard, Cassian, no one has ever taken you up on that offer,” he mused.

Azriel snorted and I resisted the urge to punch his shoulder as Feyre and Rhys stepped into the light. Feyre’s eyes widened as she got a better look at us, her dress swishing around her tiny frame as she walked forward. “So fancy tonight, brother. And you made poor Feyre dress up, too,” I drawled. I kept my eyes trained on Feyre and winked at her, and I was impressed that my forwardness didn’t throw her off of her game. She continued to assess Azriel and I, wonder and wariness both set in her face.

Rhysand introduced Feyre to Azriel, and I watched as she took his hand to shake it. She looked briefly from his hands to mine, whether to observe the difference in scar tissue or the Siphons I didn’t know. The glance was quick enough for the untrained eye to miss, but I saw it, and I knew Azriel did too.

Feyre stepped back beside Rhys, where she looked more comfortable. “You’re brothers?” she asked, and I was surprised at the strength of her voice. I don’t know why I expected a meekness to it, but it was anything but.

“Brothers in the sense that all bastards are brothers of a sort,” Rhys clarified, and Feyre looked back to me again.

“And you?"

There was no fear in her voice, just genuine curiosity. I shrugged, my wings tucking tighter against my back. “I command Rhys’s armies,” I said casually, baiting her, trying to assess her as she assessed me.

She shifted a bit, nervousness evident in her body language. I was nearly about to mention it when Azriel sensed the direction of my thoughts and spoke before I could. “Cassian also excels at pissing everyone off. Especially amongst our friends. So, as a friend of Rhysand… good luck,” he said. I almost snorted. ‘Friend’ was a loose term, I decided as I noted how Rhys’s body angled toward hers, how his gaze lingered a little too long on her even in these five minutes we had been conversing. I remembered the way he had told us about her from his time Under the Mountain, the light in his violet eyes glimmering, and I knew it was laughable for Azriel to call her his friend. If he could think anything positive about those fifty years, I knew it had to mean something more.

I pulled my thoughts together enough to ask the question that had first popped into my mind upon seeing her. I pushed Azriel out of the way, payback for his comment about me pissing everyone off, and stepped forward. “How the hell did you make that bone ladder in the Middengard Wyrm’s lair when you look like your own bones can snap at any moment?” I blurted, genuinely curious if Rhysand had lied to us, the prick.

But Feyre only looked at me, her facial features hardening, and quipped, “How the hell did you manage to survive this long without anyone killing you?"

Oh, yes. This one could handle Rhys perfectly. Feisty, strong, and fearless as a bull. I tipped my head back and laughed at her brashness, genuinely laughed, and decided that yes, I definitely liked Feyre.

“If Cassian’s howling, I hope it means Feyre told him to shut his fat mouth,” Mor’s familiar drawl sounded through the room as she finally deigned to join us. I set my feet apart in a fighting stance, ready for whatever she decided to throw my way to discredit me in front of our guest. Eventually, I decided to pick the fight myself.

“I don’t know why I ever forget you two are related,” I mused, jerking my chin at Rhys. “You two and your clothes.” Mor was wearing floor length red gown, and I could practically feel Azriel sweating beside me. That was one thing I wouldn’t chew him out for in front of our new guest - though I could tell that even she’d already sensed something between the pair of them. I’d save my comments for later, when Az had decided to ignore his feelings for Mor for the entire night and I was too drunk to keep my mouth shut.

Mor bowed sarcastically as Rhys rolled his eyes. “I wanted to impress Feyre,” she said. “You could have at least bothered to comb your hair."

If she wanted to play, I would oblige. Feyre needed to get a sense of the dynamic around here anyway, if she was going to stay. “Unlike some people,” I began, “I have better things to do with my time than sit in front of the mirror for hours."

Mor flipped her hair and assumed her own fighting stance, one only someone who knew her well could recognize. “Yes, since swaggering around Velaris-"

“We have company,” Azriel interrupted, and he began to herd all of us into the dining room.

Mor patted Azriel’s shoulder, and his shadows vanished into thin air, as usual. “Relax, Az,” she sighed, grinning at him. “No fighting tonight. We promised Rhys."

As she pulled Feyre away, likely to taint her with whatever sassy comments were running through her mind, my brothers and I walked up the steps to the table.

I opened my mouth to speak, but Rhys cut me off. “Careful with what you’re about to say, Cassian."

I chuckled darkly, and Azriel looked at me nervously. “I was only going to thank you for adding another attractive female to our circle, brother.” Rhys growled softly, the desired effect, but I continued on. “Because, Cauldron knows, we have one. But the other-"

As if she read my mind, Amren entered the room precisely then. Mor groaned even as I considered it, but I’d save irritating Amren for later. Instead, I watched for the precise moment Feyre saw Amren’s eerie silver eyes, and admired her for having the audacity to try to hide her fear.

Mor sat at the dining room table and I slid into the seat across from her, wiggling my fingers for the wine bottle. I needed a drink for this interaction.

Amren thanked Rhys for a piece of jewelry she was wearing, and after exchanging a few words with Rhys, her eyes finally fell on Feyre. I sipped my wine, watching, as Amren blatantly sniffed the poor girl. She kept her chin held high, admirably, as Amren said, “So there are two of us now. We who were born something else - and found ourselves trapped in new, strange bodies."

Feyre finally looked terrified as Amren jerked her chin at the chair beside Mor. The girl fell into it as Amren took the seat beside me, Azriel on her other side. Rhys sat beside Feyre, and I noticed her eyes linger at the empty seat at the head of the table.

“Though there is a third,” Amren continued, looking at our High Lord. “I don’t think you’ve heard from Miryam in centuries. Interesting."

The topic of conversation officially bored me, and I rolled my eyes at her. Brave, even for me. I felt like I could get away with more tonight - Amren wouldn’t dare disembowel me in front of a guest. “Please just get to the point, Amren,” I groaned. “I’m hungry."

Mor choked on her wine as Amren looked at me, Azriel monitoring us carefully. He’d chastise me later for that comment. “No one warming your bed right now, Cassian?” Amren mused. “It must be so hard to be an Illyrian and have no thoughts in your head save for those about your favorite part.”

I delighted in having picked another fight, and simply stared at her silver eyes. “You know I’m always happy to tangle in the sheets with you, Amren,” I said, unflinching from her gaze. “I know how much you enjoy Illyrian-"

“Miryam,” Rhysand interrupted me as Amren flashed me that snakelike smile, “and Drakon are doing well, as far as I’ve heard.” Amren looked away from me and back to Rhys, and I sipped my wine, satisfied with the outcome of the banter. "And what, exactly, is interesting?” Rhys asked her.

Amren went on about the rarity of humans being Made, sniffing poor Feyre again and giving Rhys an unreadable, incredulous look. I tried to read it, and could tell Azriel was suspicious when Rhys nodded at her, but Mor interrupted. “I’m hungry,” she declared, snapping and summoning our dinner to the table. Thank the Cauldron - I was hungry too. She smiled at Feyre. “Amren and Rhys can talk all night and bore us to tears, so don’t bother waiting for them to dig in,” she teased.

I certainly didn’t wait. Mor picked up her fork, clicking her tongue even as I began to eat, and continued with trying to impress Feyre, or whatever it was she was doing. “I asked Rhys if I could take you to dinner, just the two of us, and he said you wouldn’t want to. But honestly - would you rather spend time with those two ancient bores, or me?”

I swallowed a bite of food and opened my mouth to comment, even as Rhys beat me to the punch. “For someone who is the same age as me,” he said, “you seem to forget-"

“Everyone wants to talk-talk-talk,” Mor interrupted as she glared in warning at me, noticing that I had also been about to make a comment. “Can’t we eat-eat-eat, and then talk?"

Azriel chuckled, and everyone silently agreed as they began to eat. Even Feyre. I admit, I had been wondering if she _would_ eat, given her tiny size. She even drank the wine, and looked to be quite enjoying herself as Mor clinked her glass against Feyre’s.

“Don’t let these old busybodies boss you around,” Mor told her, winking.

Mor had to be joking. “Pot. Kettle. Black,” I said, finishing up the last of my bread. Looking around for more, I realized Amren hadn’t touched her own food. I don’t know why it still surprised me, but I was always happy to eat someone’s unfinished food. “I always forget how bizarre that is,” I said, taking her plate from her, shoveling food onto my own, and handing the rest to Azriel.

Looking uncomfortable, likely due to the guest and the inevitable questions she now had, Azriel paused. “I keep telling him to ask before he does that,” he said before dumping the contents onto his plate. He did tell me that, frequently. But what was the point if I could get away with it?

Amren vanished the plate. “If you haven’t been able to train him after all these centuries, boy, I don’t think you’ll make any progress now,” she said, playing with her silverware. I averted my eyes, unduly aware of the irritation Azriel would feel at being called ‘boy’ in front of Mor, let alone a guest.

“You don’t eat?” Feyre spoke for the first time since sitting, and all of us looked at her.

“Not this sort of food."

“Cauldron boil me,” Mor groaned, drinking a hefty sip of wine. “Can we not?"

I resisted the urge to chuckle at the complete normalcy of this meal and how strange it must be for Feyre. She likely expected formality, brutality, all of the things the Night Court was notorious for and never subscribed to behind the scenes. Hopefully not literally reading my mind, but definitely in the same mindset as me, Rhys chuckled. “Remind me to have family dinners more often,” he said, and Feyre’s gaze lingered across the table at each one of us. I saw surprise there, but also admiration.

I continued to eat, letting my guard down a bit as I sensed her easing into the comfort of our family dynamic. Azriel, always assessing, always calculating, would keep his guard up enough for all of us. Indeed, he noticed when Feyre’s gaze caught his Siphons, and held his hands up to her. “They’re called Siphons. They concentrate and focus our power in battle,” he explained.

“The power of stronger Illyrians tends toward ‘incinerate now, ask questions later.’ They have little magical gifts beyond that - the killing power,” Rhys clarified.

Amren’s features darkened. “The gift of a violent, warmongering people,” she added. As if she wasn’t herself violent. Azriel nodded and I gave him a sharp look, annoyed at his blind acceptance of animosity against our own people. But, I knew he was thinking of his family, his childhood, so I didn’t press it. He ignored me, anyway.

Rhys went on about the Siphons, explaining what they could do. I admired my own, the red glimmering in the light of the dining room. “Doesn’t hurt that they also look damn good,” I added, flexing my fingers.

“Illyrians,” Amren muttered, and I bared my teeth at her.

I took a sip of my wine as Feyre turned to Azriel. “How did you - I mean, how do you and Lord Cassian-"

At that, I spat out my wine across the table, drenching Mor and definitely pissing her off, but I couldn’t help it. I howled with laughter at what Feyre had called me, tears streaming from my eyes. Azriel smiled weakly as Mor transferred the wine stains from her dress to my own flying leathers, but I hardly cared. I continued to laugh as Feyre’s face contorted into pure panic.

“Cassian is not a lord,” Rhys informed her as I mopped my eyes. “Though I’m sure he appreciates you thinking he is.” Damn right. I appreciated a good laugh, but I also had never been called anything so formal in all my five hundred years. It felt nice.

Rhys explained the makeup of our Inner Circle of misfits, and Feyre looked at us all with awe. “So you - you three aren’t High Fae?” she asked us.

I choked down the last of my laughter and managed to speak again. “Illyrians are certainly not High Fae. And glad of it,” I said as I brushed my hair behind my rounded ear. “And we’re not lesser faeries, though some try to call us that.” Pricks. “We’re just - Illyrians. Considered expendable aerial cavalry at the best of times, mindless soldier grunts at the worst."

“Which is most of the time,” Azriel added.

Feyre looked at him for a moment before speaking. “I didn’t see you Under the Mountain,” she said. It was so unexpected that we all fell silent, looking away from Rhys.

It was still hard for us to think about the fifty years we had to survive here without Rhys. The fifty years during which we knew he had suffered every day and, for our court, for Velaris, for our people, we had to let him endure it. It chewed on all of us, rattled us all with guilt, and still, none of us were able to talk about it. It would be impossible to explain to Feyre, the one who suffered the most to end Amarantha’s reign, that we had suffered too. That being without our High Lord, our brother, our friend - it had been just as hard.

Mor broke the silence, though none of us looked at her as she said, “Because none of us were.” I could almost cut through her guilt, it was so thick in the air. I knew it had undone her, allowing her cousin to waste away Under the Mountain as she had done her entire childhood in the Hewn City. How Rhys had saved her from her prison, and she had been unable to save him from his. How we could explain this to Feyre, I didn’t know.

Rhys assumed his High Lord stance. “Amarantha didn’t know they existed,” he explained, his voice impalpably cold as he remembered his own horrors, I was sure. “And when someone tried to tell her, they usually found themselves without the mind to do so."

Feyre shuddered even as I did, not allowing myself to fathom just what Rhys hadn’t told us about what he’d had to do Under the Mountain. He never spoke of the details and none of us would dare ask him about people he’d had to torture, the horrors he’d not only witnessed but had been forced to participate in.

“You truly kept this city, and all these people, hidden from her for fifty years?” Feyre asked, a note of judgment in her voice. I stared hard at my plate, for if I looked up, I knew I might say something I regretted. She didn’t understand.

But how could she? Feyre had been living in the Spring Court, exposed to the rumors of the horrors of the Night Court and completely under the delusion of Rhys’s cruelty. We had counted on the rest of Prythian to see us this way, to protect our people, and Feyre was no different. It must be more than a shock to discover that Rhys was actually the type of person to lay down his life for his family, for his people.

It must be a shock not that he managed to do it, but that he’d wanted to. What he’d sacrificed for us.

“We will continue to keep this city and these people hidden from our enemies for a great many more,” Amren added solemnly. I could feel my wings slumping over my back as I continued to stare down, away, at anything but Rhys.

But I could feel Feyre’s eyes on me, on all of us, so I lifted my head as Mor explained, “There is not one person in this city who is unaware of what went on outside these borders."

And damn it, my eyes found Rhys and I could see the torture etched in his facial features. The memories floated behind his eyes and clouded them, as if he was trying to shield them from us all, to close us off. I wished he would let us shoulder the burden of his horrors with him, but I knew Rhys better than anyone. He wanted the pain to be his, and his alone. Sharing that pain with us would only make it worse.

And yet, we all still felt it. We were broken, and healing, and I could sense the deep gratitude in every single one of us that this girl - Feyre - had been the reason that Rhys was back here with us. The reason my brother was no longer suffering physically, even if he would likely suffer from the memories for many, many years more.

I barely heard Feyre ask Azriel how we all met, changing the subject. When Azriel looked to me to tell the story, Feyre turned her attention to me. I could tell that she noticed the pain on my face, so I forced myself to remember this High Lord in front of me, dressed in all his eight-year-old finery, the perfect target for a fight. I grinned. “We all hated each other at first."

Rhys still looked like a shadow, and I gave my brother a brief reprieve from Feyre’s concerned gaze as I explained our history. “We are bastards, you know. Az and I. The Illyrians… We love our people, and our traditions, but they dwell in clans and camps deep in the mountains of the North, and do not like outsiders. Especially High Fae who try to tell them what to do.” I thought of Mor’s first visit to the camp and the reactions of the camp-lords when she’d walked in like a queen. Az and I weren’t the only ones to fall under her spell that day, but many more had been enraged at the prospect of allowing a High Fae, let alone a female, stay in that camp.

“But they’re just as obsessed with lineage, and have their own princes and lords among them,” I continued, pointing across Amren at my brother. “Az was the bastard of one of the local lords. And if you think the bastard son of a lord is hated, then you can’t imagine how hated the bastard is of a war-camp laundress and a warrior she couldn’t or wouldn’t remember.” I shrugged to hide my own demons rising to the surface, suddenly feeling too full of all of the food I had just consumed. “Az’s father sent him to our camp for training once he and his charming wife realized he was a shadowsinger.” And had met an untimely death at the hands of the friends he had met there soon after. I still reveled in the memory of Rhys shattering Azriel’s prick father’s mind.

“Like the daemati,” Rhys chimed in, “shadowsingers are rare - coveted by courts and territories across the world for their stealth and predisposition to hear and feel things others can’t."

I glanced at Az, his shadows swirling around him as if he hadn’t looked at Mor in more than a few minutes. Turning back to Feyre, I continued. “The camp-lord practically shit himself with excitement the day Az was dumped in our camp. But me…” I shrugged off the cold I felt whenever I remembered my own childhood. “Once my mother weaned me and I was able to walk, they flew me to a distant camp, and chucked me into the mud to see if I would live or die."

Mor snorted. “They would have been smarter throwing you off a cliff.”

“Oh, definitely,” I grinned. “Especially because when I was old and strong enough to go back to the camp I’d been born in, I learned those pricks worked my mother until she died.” As much as I resented her for dumping me and leaving me, I knew it wasn’t entirely her fault. It was our culture, the ways of the Illyrians, that were backward. Silence fell, and as always, I could sense just how the backward ways of many aspects of Night Court society had affected us all.

Rhys cut in to break the silence. “The Illyrians are unparalleled warriors, and are rich with stories and traditions. But they are also brutal and backward, particularly in regard to how they treat their females."

“They’re barbarians,” Amren snapped. “They cripple their females so they can keep them for breeding more flawless warriors." I noticed Azriel staring off into the distance, I didn’t object to her declaration. Mor noticed too, and nodded, her face twisting in concern. I resisted the urge to give her a pointed look, one that told her that Azriel was likely not even thinking about his own people or his own experience with brutality. I knew the look of death that grazed my brother’s face when he thought of what Mor’s family did to her. It wasn’t very different from how Illyrians treated their females, but to him it was far, far worse. To both of us.

“My mother was low-born,” Rhys continued, cringing. I knew he took no pride in his people for how they treated his mother. He went on, however, to explain her story to Feyre, about how she postponed her own bleeding to keep her wings, how the warriors held her down to clip her, and how his father had winnowed in at the perfect moment to save her. His mate.

Rhys swallowed nervously, averting her gaze, as he finished. I narrowed my eyes briefly at his uncharacteristic squirming, but thought better than to mention it. “The mating bond between them clicked into place. One look at her, and he knew what she was. He misted the guards holding her,” he said.

“Misted?"

I chuckled, excited to see how Rhys would demonstrate this one. He floated a lemon wedge from the chicken into the air and turned it to mist with the flick of a finger. To her credit, Feyre did not run away at the prospect of what Rhys could do to a person’s mind. Rhys went on to explain how his mother had begged his father to ban wing clipping, and how he’d refused to isolate the Illyrians as allies.

“A real prize, your father,” Mor grumbled, surely remembered her own difficulties convincing him to isolate her father and end her engagement to Eris.

“At least he liked you,” Rhys quipped back. My attention turned to Azriel, still staring off at some far away wall, likely trying to block out his rage at the direction of the conversation. I was used to this at this point - Azriel was one of the most controlled warriors I knew, never balking or letting his rage consume him. Never - except when it came to Mor. So I didn’t say anything as Rhys continued to explain how his mother had given Rhys the best parts of our culture, bringing him to the camp for training when he came of age. Azriel eventually blinked, and his attention rejoined the conversation.

“She abandoned you?” Feyre asked, and Rhys assumed a fighting stance.

“No - never. She was staying at the camp as well. But it is considered an embarrassment for a mother to coddle her son when she goes to train."

I laughed at that. “Backward, like he said,” I said to Feyre.

“I was scared out of my mind,” Rhys said boldly. “I’d been learning to wield my powers, but Illyrian magic was a mere fraction of it. And it’s rare amongst them - usually possessed only by the most powerful, pure-bred warriors.” I admired my Siphons briefly. They did look damn good. I’d stand by it until the day I died - red was my color.

“I tired using a Siphon during those years, and shattered about a dozen before I realized it wasn’t compatible - the stones couldn’t hold it. My power flows and is honed in other ways,” Rhys concluded. I remembered the day Devlon had given Rhys his final Siphon, dark purple like the night, and told him that it would be his last if he couldn’t control himself. Of course, it had shattered that afternoon, and I’d chewed Rhys out for it for days.

“So difficult,” Mor purred, interrupting my memory, “being such a powerful High Lord.”

Rhys rolled his eyes at her. “The camp-lord banned me from using magic. For all our sakes. But I had no idea how to fight when I set food into that training ring that day. The other boys in my age group knew it, too. Especially one in particular,” he looked to me as his eyes gleamed, “who took a look and me, and beat me into a bloody mess."

I smiled, shaking my head. “You were so _clean_ ,” I said, remembering again the image of Rhys walking into our sparring ring scared shitless. “The pretty half-breed son of the High Lord - how fancy you were in your new training clothes."

“Cassian,” Azriel finally spoke, his voice low and dangerous from his recent decent into the darkness of his rage, “resorted to getting new clothes over the years by challenging the other boys to fights, with the prize being the clothes off their backs.” His critical tone made me chuckle. I had been brutal as a child, but only because that was the way you had to be as an Illyrian fending for yourself. I wasn’t proud of it, of course, but I had done what I had to do.

I blinked as I remembered Rhys telling me that there had also been a time when Feyre had fended for herself, for her entire family, while she was still living in the human realms. He’d told me that she’d had to learn to hunt, to skin and clean and cook her kill. That she, alone, had shouldered the burden of feeding her father and two older sisters. At age fourteen.

_You know what it is like. You know the mark it leaves._

“I’d beaten every boy in our age group twice over already,” I went on, seeing the understanding in her eyes and feeling safe to continue. “But then Rhys arrived, in his clean clothes, and he smelled… different. Like a true opponent. So I attacked.” I thought fondly of that first fight, feeling matched in strength and power for the first time in my short life. “We both got three lashings apiece for the fight."

Feyre flinched at my words. “They do worse, girl, in those camps,” Amren said, noticing her discomfort. “Three lashings is practically an encouragement to fight again. When they do something truly bad, bones are broken. Repeatedly. Over weeks."

I found myself wondering why Amren needed to go into such gory detail at dinner until I remembered she hadn’t yet… _eaten_.

“Your mother willingly sent you into that?” Feyre asked, genuinely curious.

“My mother didn’t want me to rely on my power. She knew from the moment she conceived me that I’d be hunted my entire life. Where one strength failed, she wanted others to save me. My education was another weapon - which was why she went with me: to tutor me after lessons were done for the day. And when she took me home that first night to our new house at the edge of the camp, she made me read by the window. It was there that I saw Cassian trudging through the mud - toward the few ramshackle tends outside of the camp.” I shivered, remembering seeing the boy in the window that night, dressed still in finery despite the clothes I had only just stolen off his back mere hours before. He had been reading a book, and I had never even held one before.

"I asked her where he was going,” Rhys went on, "and she told me that bastards are given nothing: they find their own shelter, own food. If they survive and get picked to be in a war-band, they’ll be bottom-ranking forever, but receive their own tents and supplies. But until then, he’d stay in the cold."

“Those mountains offer some of the harshest conditions you can imagine,” Azriel added, and I raised my eyebrows in agreement. Sometimes I still felt guilty that I now had power enough to consistently keep my own body heated when there were still young Illyrian boys suffering out there.

“After my lessons, my mother cleaned my lashings, and as she did, I realized for the first time what it was to be warm, and safe, and cared for. And it didn’t sit well,” Rhys’s face hardened as he spoke.

I snorted. “Apparently not. Because in the dead of night, the little prick woke me up in my piss-poor tent and told me to keep my mouth shut and come with him. And maybe the cold made me stupid, but I did.” Rhys had quite literally barged into my tent that night and, half-asleep, my guard was down. I’d followed him halfway back to camp before fully waking up and realizing where I was and what I was doing, but at that point, I could already feel the heat radiating from the house we were walking toward. Toward a house that would become the first home I’d ever had, toward the people who would become my family, even if they didn’t take to me at first.

“His mother was livid,” I went on, chuckling. “But I’ll never forget the look on her beautiful face when she saw me and said, ‘There is a bathtub with hot running water. Get in it or you can go back into the cold.’ Being a smart lad, I obeyed. When I got out, she had clean nightclothes and ordered me into a bed.” My heart lurched at the memory. “I’d spent my life sleeping on the ground - and when I balked, she said she understood because she had felt the same once, and that it would feel as if I was being swallowed up, but the bed was mine for as long as I wanted it.” And oh, had I wanted it. It had been the warmest I had ever felt, and I had nearly overslept training the next morning.

“And were you friends after that?” Feyre asked.

“No - Cauldron no,” Rhys said as I laughed. “We hated each other, and only behaved because if one of us got into trouble or provoked the other, then neither of us ate that night. My mother started tutoring Cassian, but it wasn’t until Azriel arrived a year later that we decided to be allies."

I reached around Amren, to her dismay, and clapped Azriel on the back. He sighed deeply even as my grin grew, but I knew it was a sigh of affection. “A new bastard in the camp,” I declared, watching him. “And an untrained shadowsinger to boot. Not to mention he couldn’t even _fly_ , thanks to-"

“Stay on track, Cassian,” Mor interrupted me with smooth grace, and I shrugged, Azriel’s expression turning again to that darkness. I still couldn’t grasp his self-hatred after all these years of having a family, having people who cared if he lived or died, but that was just Azriel. Mor never questioned it even if she hated to see him feel it, and, yet again, she looked at him with concern. I could see her contemplating reaching for his hand. I almost pulled my hair out when she thought better of it.

“Rhys and I made his life a living hell, shadowsinger or no,” I continued. “But Rhys’s mother had known Az’s mother, and took him in. As we grew older, and the other males around us did, too, we realized everyone else hated us enough that we had better odds of survival sticking together.” A band of powerful misfits, the three of us, hated separately, revered and feared as one.

“Do you have any gifts?” Feyre jerked her chin at my brothers. “Like them?"

I opened my mouth to make a sarcastic remark, but Mor cut me off. “A volatile temper doesn’t count,” she said.

I grinned at her mischievously, a promise to pay her back for that later. “No,” I said, turning my attention back to Feyre. “I don’t. Not beyond a heaping pile of the killing power. Bastard-born nobody, through and through.” Rhys tried to object, but I ignored his eagerness to interrupt. “Even so, the other males knew that we were different. And not because we were two bastards and a half-breed. We were stronger, faster - like the Cauldron knew we’d been set apart and wanted us to find each other. Rhys’s mother saw it, too. Especially as we reached the age of maturity, and all we wanted to do was fuck and fight.” Ah, the glory days. I was still in them, but Rhys and Azriel matured beyond that, at least openly.

“Males are horrible creatures, aren’t they?” Amren said.

“Repulsive,” Mor replied, clicking her tongue.

I shrugged. “Rhys’s power grew every day - and everyone, even the camp-lords, knew he could mist _everyone_ if he felt like it. And the two of us… we weren’t far behind.” I tapped my Siphon and smirked. “A bastard Illyrian had never received one of these. Ever. For Az and me to both be appointed them, albeit begrudgingly, had every warrior in every camp across those mountains sizing us up. Only pure-blood pricks get Siphons - born and bred for the killing power. It still keeps them up at night, puzzling over where the hell we got it from.” It still baffled me, but I wasn’t complaining.

“And then the War came,” Azriel stepped in, taking the serious part of the conversation from me even as I looked to him to take over. As was our dynamic. “And Rhys’s father visited our camp to see how his son had fared after twenty years."

Rhys swirled his wine. I looked down at my own and noticed it was long empty. “My father,” he said as I poured myself another glass, “saw that his son had not only started to rival him for power, but had allied himself with perhaps the two deadliest Illyrians in history. He got it into his head that if we were given a legion in the War, we might very well turn it against him when he returned."

Imagining it, it wouldn’t have been a horrible idea. I snickered. “So the prick separated us,” I said. “He gave Rhys a command of a legion of Illyrians who hated him for being a half-breed, and threw me into a different legion to be a common foot soldier, even when my power outranked any of the war-leaders. Az, he kept for himself for his personal shadowsinger - mostly for spying and his dirty work. We only saw each other on battlefields for the seven years the war raged.” Now that I thought about it, it hadn’t been nearly as long as it had felt. Not after what we’d been through the last fifty years. “They’d send around casualty lists among the Illyrians, and I read each one, wondering if I’d see their names on it. But then Rhys was captured-"

“That,” Rhys sharply interrupted me, “is a story for another time.” I raised my eyebrows but nodded. Whatever he wanted to wait to tell Feyre wasn’t my business.

“Once I became High Lord,” Rhys went on, “I appointed these four to my Inner Circle, and told the rest of my father’s old court that if they had a problem with my friends, they could leave. They all did. Turns out, having a half-breed High Lord was made worse by his appointment of two females and two Illyrian bastards."

“What - what happened to them then?"

I watched Rhys shrug, though I knew most of his father’s old court was long, long gone. “They nobility of the Night Court fall into one of three categories: those who hated me enough that when Amarantha took over, they joined her court and later found themselves dead; those who hated me enough to try to overthrow me and faced the consequences,” he avoided my gaze as I smirked, remembering delivering many of those consequences, “and those who hated me, but not enough to be stupid and have since tolerated a half-breed’s rule, especially when it so rarely interferes with their miserable lives."

Feyre shivered. “Are they - are they the ones who live beneath the mountain?"

He nodded. “In the Hewn City, yes. I gave it to them, for not being fools. They’re happy to stay there, rarely leaving, ruling themselves and being as wicked as they please, for all eternity."

Mor’s face was set in stone, even as Azriel looked ready to kill. “The Court of Nightmares,” she said.

“And what is this court?” Feyre asked.

My eyes gleamed, looking around once at my friends, the ones who had faced everything to make something for our people. “The Court of Dreams,” I said reverently.

Feyre’s face lit up as she turned to her other side, toward Mor and Amren. “And you?"

Amren, bored, said, “Rhys offered to make me his Second. No one had ever asked me before, so I said yes, to see what it might be like. I found I enjoyed it."

As Feyre looked to Mor, Azriel’s gaze found her, watching her, waiting to catch a single slip in her own mental health as he knew she was remembering her own past. How she got here.

“I was a dreamer born into a Court of Nightmares,” she said, twisting her blonde hair around her finger. Feigning indifference. Azriel and I both, I knew, saw right through it. “So I got out."

Feeling the grave intensity Azriel continued to bring to the room while on this topic, I changed the subject. “What’s your story then?” I asked Feyre.

She looked uncertainly to Rhys, as if she expected us to know. We did know some things, of course, with Rhys unable to keep himself from talking about her at any given moment of the day. But I wanted to know more. What made her strong enough to save a land to which she had very little ties. What made her so drawn to my brother.

Feyre straightened as Rhys shrugged, and told us about her background, her family, the fortune they lost. It was amazing to me that, even as a human, this girl had been able to hold her own. Willing to die to save the ones she loved. A light in the darkness. Just what Rhys needed.

And because I liked her, I said, “You taught yourself to hunt. What about to fight?” When she shook her head, I braced my arms on the table. “Lucky for you, you’ve just found yourself a teacher."

Feyre opened her mouth to protest but thought better of it. I could see the conflict in her eyes as she asked, “You don’t think it sends a bad message if people see me learning to fight - using weapons?"

The room went silent. Was this the kind of trash that prick Tamlin was instilling in her head? I braced myself for Mor’s response, and just like I expected, she lurched herself into full-queen mode.

“Let me tell you two things.” I shared a knowing glance with Azriel at the venom in her voice. We’d all been on the receiving end of that. “As someone who has perhaps been in your shoes before,” Mor continued, and I suppressed the growl low in my throat even as I felt Rhys and Azriel do the same.

“One,” she said, “you have left the Spring Court. If that does not send a message, for good or bad, then your training will not, either. Two, I once lived in a place where the opinion of others mattered. It suffocated me, nearly broke me. So you’ll understand me, Feyre, when I say that I know what you feel, and I know what they tried to do to you, and that with enough courage, you can say to hell with a reputation. You do what you love, what you need.”

I found myself, as always, proud of Mor’s progress, and saw that Feyre appreciated the strong female before her. I wanted to help her as I had helped Mor, training her and giving her the physical strength she needed to compliment the mental. I gazed at Feyre, waiting for her response, my expression serious for once. “I’ll think about it,” she replied, and that was enough for me. Clearly, our acceptance was all enough for her as well, for she turned to Rhys and said, “I accept your offer - to work with you. To earn my keep. And help with Hybern in whatever way I can."

That came as a surprise. None of us knew this was a test of whether or not Feyre would be working with us. I raised my brow, wondering how in the hell this ramshackle family dinner had given her the convincing she needed to join in our Inner Circle.

“Good, because we start tomorrow,” was all Rhys said.

Feyre sputtered, “Where? And what?"

Rhys rested his joined hands on the table and looked to all of us, his eyes hard and serious. I realized we were getting to the point of this dinner and braced my own hands on the table. “Because the King of Hybern is indeed about to launch a war, and he wants to resurrect Jurian to do it."

What? I looked to Azriel, and saw that he was unsurprised, of course because he was likely the one who had delivered this information to Rhys. Amren had stilled, and he was observing her reaction.

“Bullshit,” I spat. “There’s no way to do that."

Mor groaned, her clear distaste for her friend’s former lover evident in her tone. “Why would the king want to resurrect Jurian? He was so odious. All he liked to do was talk about himself."

“That’s what I want to find out,” Rhysand replied, his eye catching Feyre’s, who looked confused. “And how the king plans to do it."

Amren cleared her throat and leaned forward. “Word will have reached him about Feyre’s Making,” she said. “He knows it’s possible for the dead to be remade."

Feyre shifted uncomfortably, but it was Mor who spoke. "All seven High Lords would have to agree to that. There’s not a chance it happens. He’ll take another route.” She squinted at Rhys. “All the slaughtering - the massacres at temples. You think it’s tied to this?"

“I know it’s tied to this,” Rhys responded even as my own eyes widened in realization. Shit. “I didn’t want to tell you until I knew for certain. But Azriel confirmed that he’d raided the memorial in Sangravah three days ago. They’re looking for something - or found it."

Azriel nodded and Mor looked surprised. Rhys had likely directly told him not to tell Mor, and she would not be happy with him later about keeping anything from her. If one person could get through to Az, it was Mor, but both of them were too stupid to realize what that meant. Azriel shrugged apologetically.

“That-“ Feyre breathed. “That’s why the ring and finger bone vanished after Amarantha died. For this. But who… They never caught the Attor did they?"

“No,” Rhys said quietly. “No, they didn’t.” He turned to Amren as my blood turned to ice. “How does one take an eye and a finger bone and make it into a man again? And how do we stop it?"

Amren frowned, and I could tell her response would be bad. “You already know the answer,” she whispered. “Go to the Prison. Talk to the Bone Carver."

“Shit,” Mor and I said at the same time. Was the Bone Carver the only option? Just the thought of that prison was enough to bring a chill into the room, enough to make us all cringe. And the Bone Carver was the worst of them - I have never felt more uneasy that I have watching that creature turn into various images of my nightmares. A Hybernian soldier. An un-winged Illyrian child. The worst, though, was a young girl, blue eyed and golden haired, her face set into a disinterested frown and her entire body shivering in a nightgown soaked through to her skin.

“Perhaps you would be more effective,” Rhys said to Amren, pulling me out of my memory.

I cringed back as she hissed, “I will not set foot in the Prison, Rhysand, and you know it. So go yourself, or send one of these dogs to do it for you."

I bared my teeth at her, showing her just how brutal of a dog I could be, and she snapped at me. But Azriel spoke before I could. “I’ll go. The Prison sentries know me - what I am."

Mor stilled, squinting at Amren, and I prayed to the gods she wouldn’t start a fight with her here, in front of Feyre.

“If anyone’s going to the prison,” Rhys interrupted before Mor could cause a scene, “it’s me. And Feyre."

No. Rhys was crazy if he was considering taking her in there, Cursebreaker or not. Before I could voice my discontent, Mor broke away from her glare at Amren. “What?” she said, her hands flat on the table.

“He won’t talk to Rhys,” Amren said. “Or to Azriel. Or to any of us. We’ve got nothing to offer him. But an immortal with a mortal soul… The Bone Carver might be willing to talk to her."

As much as I hated to admit it, Amren was right. This could be our only chance. We all looked to Feyre, eyes questioning. It was, of course, her choice. Rhys said as much.

And I liked her even more as she said, “How bad can it be?"

“Bad,” I said. No one contradicted me. It would be horrible, it would be hell, but if Feyre could do this, she’d prove just what she could bring to our Inner Circle of broken, damaged misfits. She already had the courage to take down the world, and I knew with one look at the determination on all of our faces that everyone agreed - Feyre belonged here. She was one of us.

**Author's Note:**

> All dialogue, characters, the story of course belong to Sarah J. Maas.


End file.
